Despite Trump’s bluster that all is well in MAGALand (‘Trumpian-Make-America-Great-Again’), the cracks are beginning to show. It seems Americans just aren’t as enthralled as they once were with the Trumpian rhetoric.

29 January 2025

ALAN HAYES

 

THERE was no doubt about the absolute flurry of orders that fell beneath his pen once he slithered back into the oval office – all of which carried the caveat that “Executive orders carry the weight of law”.  Yet, despite Trump’s belief in his own omnipotence, his executive orders can be challenged and overturned by the courts – several of those planned by Trump already face legal challenges.

 

Mental as anything? It would be difficult not to come to that conclusion. A man that unequivocally imagines that he is a messiah, saved by God to lead America into the golden age of tomorrow, has questionable sanity.

 

Yet while the Trumpian faithful celebrated the Mad King’s coronation, ever eager to gain a glimpse of their saviour, let alone touch his hand and fall prostrate at his feet, the Tech-Trio (Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg - up front and noticeable), were no doubt salivating, dreaming of increasing the largesse in their already obscene coffers.

 

The power of the Tech-Trio behind Trump has been obvious, in particular Elon Musk. So, it was no real surprise that Musk celebrated the inauguration of Donald Trump with nothing less than a Nazi salute. He made the gesture on stage before Trump’s arrival in Washington’s Capital One arena on Monday, 20 January.

 

There was angry reactions across Europe to Elon Musk’s apparent use of a salute banned for its Nazi links in Germany – many Europeans condemned it as malicious provocation or an outreach of solidarity to far-right groups. The salute has been described as a disgrace; Musk had shown that a dangerous point for the entire free world had been reached.

 

What is even more frightening for the world, however, is the new Trumpian republic. If Trump is true to his word, his reign is likely to bring unprecedented retribution, revenge and absolute trading chaos, along with denial of compassion for humanity.

 

But Trump’s actions have played out previously: Adolf Hitler, elected in 1933, introduced the enabling act, which allowed him to enact new laws without interference from the president or the Reichstag (German parliament) for a period of four years. Trump’s executive orders have an uncanny similarity to history. Is this then the rise of the fourth Reich?

 

Kissing the King’s ring

 

It wasn’t just the Tech-Trio lining up to kiss the ring of the new republic’s king on inauguration day, a plethora of other fat-cats, including Sundar Pichai and Tim Cook, were genuflecting as well. King Donald 2.0 had the world’s largest technology platforms in the palm of his hand. They were as close to being honorary Trumps as anyone could be.

 

These business leaders directly control the tools that billions of people around the world use to communicate, to receive information, to be entertained, to navigate and understand the world. Even an incomplete list of products overseen by these people is nothing less than remarkable: Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Threads, X, Gmail, Google Search, Google Docs, Android, iPhones, iPads, Macs, iMessage, Starlink, ChatGPT, TikTok — the world's foremost technology platforms, were lining up behind mad King Donald. Trump’s ability to now rule over Silicon Valley was complete.

 

King Donald’s greatest hits

 

Just like an old 78rpm vinyl record, Trump’s greatest despicable hits are once again playing their age-worn tunes - such as… withdrawing from the Paris climate agreement, declaring a “national energy emergency”, halting the Green New Deal, pulling out of the UN’s health body the World Health Organization (WHO), declaring a “national emergency” at the Mexico border, ordering officials to deny the right to citizenship to the children of migrants either in the US illegally or on temporary visas, (which was immediately challenged in the Federal Court with several lawsuits having already been filed against the ‘Mad King’) declaring that the US will only recognise “two sexes, male and female”, halting all “diversity, equity and inclusion” (DEI) programmes within the federal government, postponing the TikTok ban, wanting to rename the Gulf of Mexico (oops, his narcissism is showing again), seeking to annex Greenland and the Panama Canal, and more and more and more – and yet even more.

 

Oh, and let us not forget, the golden Prince Elon – Trump signed a directive creating the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Supposedly a new advisory body on cutting government costs, but is it? It is expected to be led by Prince Elon Musk - who Trump separately said would get an office for about 20 employees.

 

The fact is that DOGE, Elon Musk’s promised efficiency agency, has turned out to be just another scam - it’s not the stringent, $2 trillion cost-cutting agency that had been promised.

 

The executive order Donald Trump signed officially actualising the executive branch division of DOGE is a simple rebrand of something that already exists: the U.S. Digital Service, which has little to do with budget cuts.

 

To add to the madness of Trump’s decision, the amount promised to be trimmed from the U.S. Federal budget by DOGE constitutes more than Congress has in discretionary spending - defunding the entire executive branch, which doles out funding for the military, national security, and all federal agencies.

 

Planting a seed for anarchy

 

Trump’s issuing of pardons for nearly 1,600 people arrested over the 2021 US Capitol riot, and commuting the sentences of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers members, is a gigantic slap in the face for the American judicial system. It’s incomprehensible and impossible to reconcile – neither is a convicted felon being allowed to run for the highest office in America. A lawbreaker who manipulated the legal system with the appointment of his ‘people’ to the supreme court.

 

The two officers who were injured by rioters on January 6, 2021, at the US Capitol expressed that they were angry and exhausted but would continue to speak out against the pardons granted by Trump to their attackers.

 

Metropolitan police officer Daniel Hodges was crushed between doors as rioters grabbed his gas mask and tried to gouge out his eyes.

 

Hodges said he was "beaten, crushed, kicked, punched, surrounded."

 

"They can try it again, and they know they'll be pardoned again," Hodges said.

 

Former Capitol police officer Harry Dunn, who was also injured in the 2021 riot, said, "I'm not going away. They want you to stop talking, but we can't."

 

Trump’s benevolence for criminals didn’t end with 2021 rioters, he signed a full and unconditional pardon for Ross Ulbricht, the creator of Silk Road, a dark web marketplace where illegal drugs were sold. Ulbricht was convicted in 2015 in New York in a narcotics and money-laundering conspiracy and sentenced to life in prison, but Trump joined libertarians in claiming the conviction was an example of government overreach.

 

Not surprisingly, Trump's order issuing the sweeping pardons has been met with sharp condemnations from federal judges in Washington, D.C., who presided over the cases and are now dismissing charges at the request of federal prosecutors in the new administration.

 

U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, who oversaw the election interference case against Trump, which was dismissed after his election in November, said that "no pardon can change the tragic truth of what happened on January 6, 2021."

 

Throughout his campaign, Trump had vowed to issue pardons to defendants, who he has called "hostages" and “political prisoners", but in now doing so has sown the seeds of anarchy with the ultimate ‘get out of gaol’ card.

 

King Donald in the throne room

 

As the mad king settles back, his administration wasted little time getting to work on making his laundry list of campaign promises a reality.

 

Amidst the fluster of ‘making America something’, though unlikely great again, the mad King’s nastiness and meanness continues to manifest apace – ever apparent in his facial expressions as the Rt. Rev. Mariann Edgar Budde, during the prayer service at Washington National Cathedral, directed a message to the President, who was seated in the front row.

 

She called on Trump to show "mercy" toward LGBTQ people and immigrants but his face told it all – he was unmoved by her heartfelt pleas.

 

There would be no compassion from the throne room of the new king, despite Budde addressing Trump directly from the pulpit… “In the name of our God, I ask you to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now. There are gay, lesbian and transgender children in Democratic, Republican and independent families, some who fear for their lives." Yet, throughout the sermon, Trump’s stoic expression remained, as he continually flipped through his program and scanned the room.

 

When asked what he thought of the sermon, Trump replied, “She was nasty… apart from her inappropriate statements, the service was a very boring and uninspiring one. She is not very good at her job! She and her church owe the public an apology!"

 

But not everything has gone well for the would-be dictator! Trump has now been handed a setback in his efforts to rewrite immigration law when a judge temporarily blocked his order to end automatic citizenship for babies born in the U.S. Trump’s order is “blatantly unconstitutional,” the judge said.

 

Uneasy about Trump’s agenda

 

There’s no doubt that Trump’s victory was primarily due to winning a crucial slice of voters, even though they had expressed substantial unease about him and/or his agenda. Yet they evidently believed their economic system had failed them and were prepared to re-elect a man who is transparently a crony capitalist. But why? Because they believe the mad King’s reign ushers in a new economic stage - a free-for-all of rip-offs and exploitation. But Trump has to deliver!

 

Now that the dust has settled, if Trump doesn’t reward the faith of these conflicted voters, by making progress on the issues that most concern them and ending neoliberal individualism, they may inexorably turn their focus back toward their other hesitations about him, a trend that would hurt Republican candidates in future elections.

 

Yet, despite Trump’s bluster that all is well in MAGALand (‘Trumpian-Make-America-Great-Again’), the cracks are beginning to show.

 

Even though thousands of the MAGA faithful turned out and braved the inclement weather to witness the mad King’s coronation, the ‘fissures of discontent’ have already widened from being left out in the cold in favour of the billionaires - cold comfort and concern for the backroom republican boffins, who are trying figure out how funding the MAGAland dream will come true. It seems Americans just aren’t as enthralled as they once were with the Trumpian rhetoric.

 

The rebooted Trump show is now boring more Americans, despite the would-be star’s efforts to launch version 2.0 proceedings with a bang, via a flurry of serious, inconsequential and outright absurd executive orders, which has still left a deeply divided America.

 

Throw into this melting pot, Trump’s ‘anarchist’s freedom card’, and the continual grumblings of a large slice of those Americans, who just can’t tolerate the already apparent inane rule of the mad King, there was a trial run in version 1.0, you have all the ingredients for sedition. It happened in 1861!

 

The much heralded $TRUMP memecoin's appeal is the same as its namesake's... a disaster! Every supporter knows some people are going to lose — they just don't think they're going to be left holding the bag. So, despite all his bluster and pomp, will America's first pump-and-dump president end up sinking the boat in MAGAland’s new gulf?

SUBSCRIBE FOR FREE to the Grapevine News Online and to the monthly e-book edition of the Grapevine Community Weekly. Our online news platform and monthly newspaper is about real local news and events. We will not spam you or share your details with third parties.